The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus that enables the use of a widely employed authoring tool for creating Web pages on the Internet to easily specify a user desired area within the web page for audible reading. xe2x80x9cAudible readingxe2x80x9d is the computer based process of translating text data into mechanically created sound (preferably emulating a human voice) over an acoustical speaker.
Because HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is used to create an Internet xe2x80x9cWorld Wide Webxe2x80x9d (Web) page, conventionally, a user having no knowledge of the language could not create his or her own Web page. Recently, however, an authoring tool has appeared that makes it unnecessary for a user to know HTML in order to create a Web page. With the authoring tool, a user is able to create a Web page as though he or she were simply laying out a document using a common word processor.
However, a knowledge of HTML is still required when creating a high-level, sophisticated Web page. A Web page, for instance, providing audible reading of only a portion of the Web page (specified by a web page creator) when the Web page is loaded and displayed by a browser.
An explanation will now be given for a conventional method used to specify an area of a Web page that can be used for audible reading. Conventionally a tag is inserted into a Web page HTML that calls a text reading engine when a text area for audible reading is specified in a Web page that is displayed by a browser. An example of this is shown in FIG. 1 which shows a diagram depicting a sample Web page HTML that is prepared for display by a text editor. The source file for the Web page is designated by the HTML tags that are used. In this example, a program for audible reading designated by the  less than OBJECT greater than  tag provides a function for reading the text in the Web page when displayed by a browser. With this method, however, all portions of the Web page that are displayed are read; it is impossible to designate for audible reading only a desired portion of the Web page.
Even if a method for designating a desired area in a Web page for reading and means for transmitting the designated area to a program for audible reading are provided, when the complicated tag coding that is required is taken into account, the operating efficiency will be low if the common text editor employed for FIG. 1 is used to design and edit a desired audible reading area.
Therefore, to create a high-level Web page on which only an area that was designated by a Web page creator is read audibly, an authoring tool, for defining the structure of a document, is also required that, like a word processor, provides a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing environment.
According to the present invention, a Web page creator need use only an input device to specify a text portion for which audible reading is desired, so that tag information and a program that are required when a browser reads a specific portion of text are automatically inserted into a Web page that is being created. In this manner, a Web page in which text is to be audibly read can be easily created.
Further, according to the present invention, to visually display an area to be read audibly, a tag, such as a tag for marking the area that is to be read, is automatically inserted, thereby enabling both the creator and the reader of a Web page to easily identify which portion is to be read.
It is, therefore, one object of the present invention to provide a method and an apparatus whereby a desired text area for the audible reading of a portion of a Web page can be easily specified and created by using only an input device, such as a keyboard or a mouse.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and an apparatus whereby the form of the display used for an area, as specified by a Web page creator, that is to be read audibly differs from the forms used for other areas, so that the area that is to be read audibly can be quickly identified.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art in view of the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.